Ok, I know this is totally girly but I love the “It’s raining men” fight between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. It’s hilarious to me. And I always love a good sword fight so let’s not forget the aforementioned Indigo Montoya/Man in Black fight on the Cliffs of Insanity.

Rocky v Apollo – end of Rocky 2 (has to be the longest 10 seconds in movie history)
The street scene in Heat
High Top getting the beat down in Colors
Marcellus and Butch in Pulp Fiction
Robert Downey Jr. explaining how he’s gonna smash that big, sweaty bastard in Sherlock Holmes
The Crazy 88’s getting 186’ed in Kill Bill
Hell, in Kill Bill 2, Uma and Daryl Hannah’s fight scene
The end scene in Reservoir Dogs
I’m sure I will have more, but my boss is about to walk in the door. Dammit man..and woman….

T-100 vs. T-1000 at the end of T2.
The standoff at the end of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The closing scene of Unforgiven when William walks into the saloon and shows Little Bill who he is really dealing with.

That is a slugout, isn’t it? Some awesome special effects, too, like when Arnie punches Robert Patrick through the face, but he morphs it around and pulls a reversal? Or slamming Arnolds head with that I-beam? Sick scene.

– The final sequence of Reservoir Dogs
– The final shootings in The Departed
– Taxi Driver, when Travis saves Iris
– Zombieland: the supermarket
– LA Confidential: Russel Crowe and Guy Pearce playing bad cop/good cop
– The one that we don’t get to see at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

All good. But the beaut of the bunch is Butch and Sundance. What a great ending. (maybe a topic for the future… oooh. LOL) But what I was going to say is… I think we see all we need to, if you know what I mean. ;)

All good. Never seen Yojimbo. I know, I know. You guys are going to find out quickly that foreign films aren’t exactly a strength. Maybe, like I said erlier about the chickflicks, maybe I should do a series where I just power down awesome foreign fliicks based on suggestions.

The Luke/Vader duel is so awesome because its emotionally charged. Good effects and swordfighting too, but it just carries such WEIGHT at that point. It’s been two movies coming, you know?

I could practically steal K2’s post for my own… Inigo vs. the Man in Black, Darth Maul, and the lobby fight are all on my list of top fight scenes.

Additionally:

“Hard Times”: I know, I’ve been talking this up a fair bit since I saw it. But still. Chaney vs. Street, this great big slobberknocker of a fight when nobody’s even been a challenge for Chaney before. And midway through the fight, Street is handed some steel weights to give him an edge… and he throws them away. Even though he’s been hired by the bad guys, he wants to win or lose fairly.

“The Adventures of Robin Hood”: The final grand melee.

“Gladiator”: Maximus vs. Commodus.

“Raiders of the Lost Ark”: Shooting the swordsman. Sure, it’s not much of a fight, but that’s what makes it so great.

That IS what makes it great. And funny enough, I thought of that one myself.

Because you EXPECT a fight. We’re conditioned that… hey, this is going to BE BIG. But they flip your expectations completely on their head. One of the many many moments that make that movie an all time great.

And go ahead an plagiarize! I do! I never write anything here myself. Copy/Paste. The secret of my success! :D

I LOVE the Sonny Corleone fight in GF1, that was no joke. It totally feels like they had a camera on the street and caught a street brawl. Yeah, ok, he whiffs a couple of times, but there will be no badmouthing the Godfather allowed.

K2 mentioned the phantom menace lightsaber duel, and I do think that’s a worthy Star Wars moment. Absolutely incredible fight choreography. And when Neesan medidates for a moment when he’s stuck? That’s awesome. If only Lucas made the Jedis half that cool the rest of the time in the prequels.

On Twitter today, someone mentioned the Karate Kid, and I was saying I like watching Miyagi kick the shit out of the Cobra Kai in their skeleton costumes better than I like the martial arts tournament at the end.

As well choreographed as the Episode One duel is, I find it hard to get behind given that it’s just three guys we don’t care about swinging sabers at each other. I respect it for it’s choreography, but it never stands out in my mind as great.

Hmmmm so many to choose from, many already stated (The sword fight at the top of the cliffs of insanity is way up there.)

Some that haven’t been mentioned: Bruce Lee at the end of Fists of Fury, Bruce Lee vs. Kareem Abdul Jabar in Enter the Dragon is also just epic.
Almost every fight in Kill Bill (thinking about that Bruce Lee track suit lol).
Legolas laying waste to 41 Orcs at the battle of Helm’s Deep, only to be beaten by 1 by Gimli.
Ripley and her big metal fork lift vs. the Alien Queen. (“Get away from her you BITCH!”)
Two words: HARD BOILED (’nuff said)
And just to add the ridiculous to the sublime: King Arthur vs. the Black Knight, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“What are you gonna do, bleed on me?”)
And finally, the monster battle to end all monster battles; Godzilla and friends vs. King Ghidorah in Destroy all Monsters

When you mentioned Helm’s deep, the scene that came to mind for me is the final battle of Fellowship, where Boromir gets shot up with those wrist thick arrows, and then Aragorn has that battle with the chief orc, where that thing pulls himself closer by pulling the blade deeper into himself? I love that scene. The whole thing. That’s still my favorite movie of the three, I’m pretty sure.

It’s just a flesh wound!! Now that’s a nice mention. Very funny.

Funny fight scenes made me think of the end of Blazing Saddles. That’s a good one too…

Ong Bak is my favorite martial arts movie, ever. There’s something uplifting about a movie where the guy just tears through and kicks everyone’s ass. I mean, there’s never even a doubt in your mind that Tony Jaa is just going to elbow everyone in the skull and save the day. I also really liked the slow motion instant replay shots they added to the American release so we could fully appreciate whatever sick stunt he just pulled. I think guys were really disappointed when I used to invite them over to “watch kung-fu,” and then I actually made them watch this movie, fast forwarding to all the good parts. I was a pretty lame date…but I don’t care.

Holy crap definitely Sammo Hung vs the kung-fu corpse in “Spooky Encounters.” (I went through a pretty comprehensive kung-fu phase.) That or the final fight in “The Legend of the Drunken Master.” Actually, all in all that’s a much better fight, but there’s just something about the kung-fu corpse…

It’s Jackie Chan’s best movie, in my opinion. Make sure you start with ‘Legend of the Drunken Master’ though, because ‘Drunken Master’ is a different and in my opinion lesser film. ‘Shanghai Drunken Master’ is even worse. (As you can see I wasn’t joking about that kung-fu phase.)

It gives extra weight eventually to the final scene in Casino, doesn’t it? It wasn’t lost on me that Vincent FINALLY got to turn the tables and beat Pesci down for a change. LOL. I bet there was some ball busting going on over that! :D

There are two points I need to touch on regarding favorite fight scenes in a movie:

#1: Kill Bill Vols I & II: These two movies contain possible the best fights scenes all around in ANY movie, EVER! Just saying. This specifically leads me to my second point, which I am truly surprised no one has mentioned…

#2: GIRL FIGHTS! Hands down the best fights in movies are between women! They are raw, ruthless and beautiful. My faves, of course are in the Kill Bills; however, some other movies with cool girl fights are: Million Dollar Baby, Total Recall, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon & Single White Female to name a few off the top of my head.

Kill Bill has been getting MEGA props in this thread. Couldn’t be happier about it. I think before this I might have still thought it was just me that was that crazy about it, but I guess not. People definitely love them some Kill Bill here. :D

If you havent seen me say it anywhere, I’m just going to say I LOVE Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Its in my top ten all time. And the role of women in that movie is definitely an element in that massive love. It certainly deals with the societal gender problems of ancient China, but there’s no doubt that the women in that film rise above and kick ass and take names. Only one of the many many many things I love about that flick, but its certainly on the list. That flick will get a “MTESS” treatment one day for sure.

I know I’ve said this before too, but Million Dollar Baby is a film I’m VERY very split on. I recognize the quality. I really do. Obviously its well done. But I still havent forgiven it for the “switcheroo”. That is, it started one way, and then with no foreshadowing in the film really (or not enough if there WAS any) and certainly none in the marketing, that film turned tragic and dark and very very depressing. I am not a big fan of hairpin turns in tone in a film.